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UID:20260307T214618EST-5699P1faM7@132.216.98.100
DTSTAMP:20260308T024618Z
DESCRIPTION:Azizul Rasel (Â鶹´«Ã½ÍøÕ¾)\n\n'State\, Class\, and Ethnic
 ity: Class Alliance and Class Fracture among the working classes of East P
 akistan.'\n\n \n\nThe newly established postcolonial state played a key ro
 le in shaping the composition and dynamics of East Pakistan’s industrial l
 abor force. From the 1950s onward\, the industrial working class in East P
 akistan became mainly Muslim\, and the state labor policy played a key rol
 e in shaping this. Yet\, this class was far from homogeneous\; the working
  class was fragmented across linguistic and ethnic lines\, primarily betwe
 en Bengali- and Urdu-speaking Muslims. This essay investigates the complex
  mosaic of East Pakistan’s working class and the roles of ethnicity and th
 e state in class alliances and class fractures within it. I argue that the
  state sought to fragment working-class solidarity in order to restrict th
 e possibilities of industrial action and collective bargaining. State poli
 cies often resulted in tensions between Bengali and non-Bengali workers. E
 thnic differences also disrupted the solidarity of the industrial working 
 class\, as Bengali workers found that the state was discriminating against
  them. The emerging middle-class political activists and nationalist labor
  leaders often fostered this sense of deprivation. While I stress the work
 ers’ agency\, I contend that the subaltern historian’s proposition that th
 e subaltern domain is always autonomous\, as against what I argue\, invoki
 ng Rajnarayan Chandravarkar’s works\, that neighborhood and meeting places
 \, such as shops and bazars\, played an essential role in the making of wo
 rkers’ consciousness and their actions. I also question Dipesh Chakrabarty
 ’s argument that workers born in a pre-bourgeois condition\, such as the C
 alcutta Jute Mill workers\, grow up and uphold a culture which was essenti
 ally pre-bourgeois and ‘pre-bourgeois relationship’\, and this condition b
 affled them in forming and acting as a class. I argue that this worker's i
 nability to form solidarity and act as a class was not solely responsible 
 for the ‘pre-bourgeois’ condition. I argue\, drawing on the work of Louis 
 Althusser and Michael Foucault\, that the state\, through both its repress
 ive and ideological apparatuses\, played a crucial role in fragmenting wor
 kers’ solidarity. In the case of East Pakistan\, I argue that ethnic and l
 inguistic differences\, and\, most importantly\, state apparatuses\, playe
 d a crucial role in fragmenting workers’ solidarity and preventing them fr
 om emerging as a class.\n	\n	Light refreshments served.\n\n \n
DTSTART:20260311T190000Z
DTEND:20260311T210000Z
LOCATION:Room 116\, Peterson Hall\, CA\, QC\, Montreal\, H3A 0E6\, 3460 rue
  McTavish
SUMMARY:IOWC Speaker Series: Azizul Rasel\, 'State\, Class\, and Ethnicity:
  Class Alliance and Class Fracture among the working classes of East Pakis
 tan.'
URL:/history/channels/event/iowc-speaker-series-azizul
 -rasel-state-class-and-ethnicity-class-alliance-and-class-fracture-among-3
 71574
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